Okay, first vid that I’ve done for a MEP that can really stand well on its own. This vid has been the most technically challenging video that I have attempted as my videos don’t tend to be action / dance velocity stuff and I was very unfamiliar with what to do and how to do it. Most of the time I spent dreading my music choice and banging my head on the desktop wondering how I was going to get myself out of this mess…

Source MusicSuper Shooter by Rip Slyme (Gantz OP-sized version)
Well, the theme of the JJ-MEP was to pick an opening or closing theme from an anime and use a different anime source for the video. After scouring through my collection, I was depressed as I couldn’t find anything inspiring so I went to my DVD collection and started hunting again. I really liked this song, but was very afraid of using it as it was fast paced and required a lot of beat-sync which I have not been known for. But as I wanted to be a part of this MEP, I finally chose this piece to start my woes on this video.

Source VideoNeon Genesis Evangelion
Well, as I had created so many clips for my Threshold video and the yet unmade (and may not be made for a while) Destiny video, I sort of half jokingly limited myself to using them for all the MEP’s that I’ve joined this year. So far, this is the third MEP with EVA footage, and counting! How long can this go on? I donno…

Basic Ideas and ThemesOriginally, my only goal was to get through this video! I have never been faced with so little idea of what I wanted to accomplish with the video and have so much to complete. It all started with the scene of EVA 02 standing on the deck of the ship extending the knife and from there the video sort of took off. The idea finally solidified into a sort of 3-pronged character profile of the EVA pilots and things sort of took shape from there. Each segment of song would focus on one or more of the pilots (mainly Asuka and Shinji, as Rei really didn’t do a lot in her EVA, video-wise). This made it sort of easier on my as I finished one section, I knew I have only 2 choices on what happened next!

TechniquesThis video was totally ‘seat of the pants’ editing. No real rhyme or reason or theory behind it, just pure visual eye candy. Sorry, nothing deep to say here, but I was really up against the wall for this one.

Visual EffectsBecause each segment of music occurred so quickly and there were distinct audio parts to the song, it gave me the opportunity to try different effects. The predominate visual effect (that zooming, embossed look throughout about 70% of the video) was more of a cry of desperation than an actual conscience choice as I came across it by accident. The effect is called ‘water’ and had a few adjustable parameters to play with, including transparency! That coupled with the ‘zoom in’ effect made a good combo, so I stuck with it for a good part of the video.

The second visual effect that I used was the ‘flying windows’ used at the beginning and near the last 2/3’s of the video. I needed something to occur while the very fast guitar was playing and this sort of came to me. It also gave me a chance to learn how to use the ‘object curves’ in my editor a bit more too.

The last, and most time consuming aspect of this video was all the masking (hence the sub-title Eva Masking Hell. True, it doesn’t look like much, but for the first time I’ve ever tried this on such a scale, I spent way too much time masking.

Closing ThoughtsI finished it! I think that was an accomplishment in itself! And too, with only 1 or 2 minor changes, what you see here is what was shown in the original JJ-MEP piece (and of course, I added in the end bumper too – thanks for the reminder, Rina Rina). I hope you enjoy it!